..Genomic imprinting evolves in this model because it leads to a pattern of gene expression in the nuclear haplotype that is coadapted with (i.e., adaptively coordinated with) gene expression in the coinherited cytoplasmic genome...

..Our application of the model to a genome scan supports this assertion by identifying pairs of loci that show reciprocal changes in their imprinting status as the background provided by the other locus changes...

Jason B WolfFaculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UKEpigenetics 3:295-9. 2008

..Thus, we suggest that phenotype-based mapping approaches can significantly advance our understanding of various aspects of genomic imprinting, especially when integrated with other molecular or bioinformatic approaches...

..Thus, although epistatic pleiotropy made a smaller contribution than single-locus pleiotropy, it clearly made a significant contribution to the genetic architecture of variation/covariation...

A maternal-offspring coadaptation theory for the evolution of genomic imprinting

Jason B WolfFaculty of Life Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United KingdomPLoS Biol 4:e380. 2006

..In conjunction with existing hypotheses, our results suggest that imprinting may have evolved due to different selective pressures at different loci...

The capture of heritable variation for genetic quality through social competition

Jason B WolfFaculty of Life Sciences, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, UKGenetica 134:89-97. 2008

..Here we provide a general introduction to the concept of competition dependence and briefly introduce two models to demonstrate the potential evolutionary consequences of competition-dependent trait expression...

Relative contribution of additive, dominance, and imprinting effects to phenotypic variation in body size and growth between divergent selection lines of mice

..Moreover, theoretical work on the evolution of sex-dependent genomic imprinting effects makes specific predictions about the phenotypic patterns of such effects, which, however, have not been assessed empirically to date...

..Our results provide a mechanism for the maintenance of heritable variation in natural populations and suggest an area for research into the importance of competition in the genetic architecture of fitness related traits...

Maternal effects as the cause of parent-of-origin effects that mimic genomic imprinting

Reinmar HagerFaculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UKGenetics 178:1755-62. 2008

....

Epistatic pleiotropy and the genetic architecture of covariation within early and late-developing skull trait complexes in mice

Jason B WolfFaculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, UKGenetics 171:683-94. 2005

..Nearly all single-locus and epistatic pleiotropic effects contributed positive components to covariances between traits, suggesting that genetic integration in the skull is achieved by a complex combination of pleiotropic effects...

..discoideum. More generally, they suggest that simple rules governing interactions between individuals can be sufficient to generate a diverse array of outcomes that appear complex and unpredictable when those rules are unknown...